ARTIST STATEMENT FOR FINE ART SERIES
My personal projects frequently explore the connection of the past to the present, and the relationship of people to their environment. Personal identity and cultural history are often attached to a sense of place, and this can have a strong influence over the texture and stories of our life. I am very interested in the experience of family and cultural history ... the need for a story that ties us to a larger meaning, and the extent to which we either inherit larger stories or attempt to create newer ones.
THE FARM
‘The Farm’ series was photographed over a decade, on a Kansas family farm. The land had been in the family for many generations and much of the family's roots, identity, and stories are tied to this particular plot of earth. This project is about place and history, about memory and story. It's about the things that tie us together, and the things that bring us back.
View Gallery
Read interview with Blue Mitchell
GEORGIA & SABINE
Georgia and Sabine are miniature dachshunds, my girls who I photographed over a number of years. Each image is a quiet moment on an ordinary day, just like a thousand other moments taken for granted. My relationship with them had always been very up-close and personal, as are my photographs. Taken at eye level in a domestic environment, the portraits have an intimacy that takes the viewer closer to the thin line that separates we human animals from our pets. There is a sense of waiting and anticipation in these photographs that is unique to the routine life of a domesticated pet. Yet I think this feeling of expectation often resonates with the viewer as part of the human experience, where much of our life is spent in ordinary activities with the anticipation of something bigger or more exciting around the corner. These somewhat unremarkable moments string together to create a life, and it is often in their midst where we find beauty, joy, and peace.
View Gallery
Read interview with Russell Joslin
ELEMENTS
I am equally comfortable immersed in an urban environment or in the natural world, and perhaps this is the reason for my attraction to the contest between the man-made and the organic, particularly where one seems to be holding the upper hand. Urban development and nature are in constant negotiation, and we are witness to their many small dramas going on around us all the time. There is an aching beauty that hangs in the balance of the moment, and always hints at what just was, or what soon will be.
View Gallery